Peakoverload
Member
Bit of a long story but....
I took up archery 5 years ago and the first bow I bought had 34lb limbs. In truth this was a bit too much for me and if I shot a round by the last 2-3 ends I'd be really struggling to draw the bow. Over the course of the first 12-18 months I built up my strength and found that I could shoot 34lb without too many problems. Since then I've bought a new bow (2 years ago W&W Inno CXT with W&W Rapido Limbs) with new limbs but still kept them at 34lb (at my draw length, according to my bow scale this is 40lb OTF) and whilst I never made drawing/aiming look easy/comfortable I could shoot well and was within a whisker of achieving bowman. Then I had a long run of bad luck. Twice in two years my back went and I couldn't shoot at all (or go into work) for 3 months and 2 months respectively and after each bout of back problems it would take me a long time to slowly build my strength and form back up again.
This year things got so bad but I really started to almost hate shooting, or at least hate shooting my bow. I bought lighter 32lb limbs and this helped but I just found that I simply didn't have the strength to shoot a whole round. Typically I would find that in an end the first 3 arrows would be good, the next 2 would be a struggle and on the 6th I could sometimes struggle to even pull through the clicker. Over the course of a round I'd get 1/3rd to 1/2th way through and start to get very tired and by 2/3rds I'd end up having to give up. There was a very big part of me that wanted to just give up archery. It was only the memory of how much I used to enjoy it that kept me going.
By chance several members of my club all got into traditional archery and one of them kindly allowed me to shoot their American Flatbow one day. I immediately fell in love with it and the very next weekend went out and bought myself a bow and wooden arrows. The bow is rated at 35lb and according to my bow scale this equates to 39.75lb OTF, so essentially the same as my recurve.
I've only had this bow for just over 2 months and the furthest I've shot is only 40M but I'm getting very good groups, frequent all gold ends with scores averaging 48-52 an end. More importantly I find I can shoot this bow all day long and when shoot a round I can shoot the last arrow the same as the very first arrow and indeed could shoot 2 rounds back to back quite comfortably.
Today though I decided to try my recurve again. Bizarrely when I first drew the bow I actually thought something was wrong and that I'd forgotten to set something up because I couldn't feel anything. The next thing I noticed was just how incredibly heavy my recurve feels compared to my flatbow, just holding it out in front of me was making my arm ache.
After checking everything I then loosed a few arrows and was pleasantly surprised when 4 of them ended in a tight group in the 9/10 but after that everything started to go wrong again and I was back to shooting 3 arrows well, 2 arrows badly and 1 arrow almost not able to pull through the clicker.
I do know that some of this is down to just loosing muscle strength over 2 years of minimal shooting but I also believe that some of it is down to my form.
With the flatbow I have no problem at all drawing it, in fact I think I could comfortably draw a 45lb bow (10lb's heavier) but I struggle with the recurve because it's a slower draw. I always find that the first part of the draw (say up to where the string in 4-5 inches from the face) is so easy it almost feels like there's nothing there. From there to my anchor position it get's harder but not difficult. The problem appears to be that sometimes I've come to my anchor and the clicker might be 1/2" from the tip of the arrow, other times it could be anything up to 2" away. Very, very occasionally I might find that I might have drawn to within 0.5-1cm from the clicker and then find I pull through the clicker before I'm even ready (but this is rare).
I always go through the same shot process. I always concentrate on my form but as soon as I start to draw and I start to feel the resistance of the limbs something just goes wrong and although it feels like I'm at the correct anchor position, I'm clearly not and have far too much arrow to expand through the clicker with.
I don't want to give up recurve but equally I don't want to struggle so much with it either. I'm not sure how best to work through the problem. Any thoughts, suggestions?
I took up archery 5 years ago and the first bow I bought had 34lb limbs. In truth this was a bit too much for me and if I shot a round by the last 2-3 ends I'd be really struggling to draw the bow. Over the course of the first 12-18 months I built up my strength and found that I could shoot 34lb without too many problems. Since then I've bought a new bow (2 years ago W&W Inno CXT with W&W Rapido Limbs) with new limbs but still kept them at 34lb (at my draw length, according to my bow scale this is 40lb OTF) and whilst I never made drawing/aiming look easy/comfortable I could shoot well and was within a whisker of achieving bowman. Then I had a long run of bad luck. Twice in two years my back went and I couldn't shoot at all (or go into work) for 3 months and 2 months respectively and after each bout of back problems it would take me a long time to slowly build my strength and form back up again.
This year things got so bad but I really started to almost hate shooting, or at least hate shooting my bow. I bought lighter 32lb limbs and this helped but I just found that I simply didn't have the strength to shoot a whole round. Typically I would find that in an end the first 3 arrows would be good, the next 2 would be a struggle and on the 6th I could sometimes struggle to even pull through the clicker. Over the course of a round I'd get 1/3rd to 1/2th way through and start to get very tired and by 2/3rds I'd end up having to give up. There was a very big part of me that wanted to just give up archery. It was only the memory of how much I used to enjoy it that kept me going.
By chance several members of my club all got into traditional archery and one of them kindly allowed me to shoot their American Flatbow one day. I immediately fell in love with it and the very next weekend went out and bought myself a bow and wooden arrows. The bow is rated at 35lb and according to my bow scale this equates to 39.75lb OTF, so essentially the same as my recurve.
I've only had this bow for just over 2 months and the furthest I've shot is only 40M but I'm getting very good groups, frequent all gold ends with scores averaging 48-52 an end. More importantly I find I can shoot this bow all day long and when shoot a round I can shoot the last arrow the same as the very first arrow and indeed could shoot 2 rounds back to back quite comfortably.
Today though I decided to try my recurve again. Bizarrely when I first drew the bow I actually thought something was wrong and that I'd forgotten to set something up because I couldn't feel anything. The next thing I noticed was just how incredibly heavy my recurve feels compared to my flatbow, just holding it out in front of me was making my arm ache.
After checking everything I then loosed a few arrows and was pleasantly surprised when 4 of them ended in a tight group in the 9/10 but after that everything started to go wrong again and I was back to shooting 3 arrows well, 2 arrows badly and 1 arrow almost not able to pull through the clicker.
I do know that some of this is down to just loosing muscle strength over 2 years of minimal shooting but I also believe that some of it is down to my form.
With the flatbow I have no problem at all drawing it, in fact I think I could comfortably draw a 45lb bow (10lb's heavier) but I struggle with the recurve because it's a slower draw. I always find that the first part of the draw (say up to where the string in 4-5 inches from the face) is so easy it almost feels like there's nothing there. From there to my anchor position it get's harder but not difficult. The problem appears to be that sometimes I've come to my anchor and the clicker might be 1/2" from the tip of the arrow, other times it could be anything up to 2" away. Very, very occasionally I might find that I might have drawn to within 0.5-1cm from the clicker and then find I pull through the clicker before I'm even ready (but this is rare).
I always go through the same shot process. I always concentrate on my form but as soon as I start to draw and I start to feel the resistance of the limbs something just goes wrong and although it feels like I'm at the correct anchor position, I'm clearly not and have far too much arrow to expand through the clicker with.
I don't want to give up recurve but equally I don't want to struggle so much with it either. I'm not sure how best to work through the problem. Any thoughts, suggestions?